


I hope I don't get this kid killed

by egh_yo



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alive Matt | Mail Jeevas & Mello | Mihael Keehl, Developing Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, M/M, One Shot, POV Mello | Mihael Keehl, POV Original Character, Recreational Drug Use, Wammy House, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23392309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egh_yo/pseuds/egh_yo
Summary: From kids to now, we've always been best mates. There's nobody I'd rather be around. But I so rarely saw him vulnerable and I never knew what he really cared about. Mello POV. MattxMello. Reference to drug use.
Relationships: Matt | Mail Jeevas/Mello | Mihael Keehl
Kudos: 22





	I hope I don't get this kid killed

**Author's Note:**

> Hi,
> 
> Self isolation had me revisiting DeathNote and these Matt/Mello stories so I tried my own. I don't usually write and I've never posted any work before so it might be a bit rough around the edges but I hope you enjoy it and don't think it's shit. Poor Matt never got much air time in the anime or manga, so it's nice to read about him on here. 
> 
> \-----------------------------------------

We’ve always been best mates, ever since he arrived at Wammy’s, bright eyed and confused as hell. I took him under my wing and he followed me everywhere. We were the best two in the place. Okay fine, that little prick Near was always credited as number one and yeah, of course that fucked me off. But fuck Near. He’s dead inside. No emotion, no nothing. He’s a fucking robot. Empty. Me and Matt, we have passion. Passion and drive. Well, me anyway, Matt’s a little more easily distracted, always looking for a short-term gain. He didn’t exactly always follow through on things and as we’ve grown up his drug use has become a little gratuitous, but he’s got real heart and he’s always been my favourite person to be around.

Matt never cared much about the Kira case or even about L, not really. He was so nonchalant about the competition to be L’s successor. I’d spend hours and hours tugging out my blond hair, studying and studying, words and equations blocking out my vision as I felt the pressure build up inside my head. Desperately trying to be good enough. Desperately trying to beat Near just one fucking time. The entire time Matt would be sat there, leaning against my wall or sitting hunched over on the edge of my bed tapping away at some game, racing someone, shooting something.

‘You really need to chill.’ He’d tell me passively.

I’d snap.

‘Fucking chill!? HOW THE FUCK CAN I CHILL?!’

This is the only thing that matters. I had to be L’s successor.

‘This is all I fucking have. AND IT’S ALWAYS FUCKING NEAR!’ I’d scream and I’d throw something, smash something, break something and Matt would rub his face and watch me lash out, but he’d always stay there.

I lost my cool a lot. I lay awake at night wracking my brains out, following every detail of the Kira case. I couldn’t eat properly most of the time from the stress, I’d just eat blocks of chocolate as I studied. I just cared. L was the only figure I really had to look up to and his death shook the last of whatever sort of life I had. But Matt, I never really knew him to get impassioned. Excited, yes. Anytime a new game came out he’d be lit up with energy. But he was playful, not vulnerable. He cared about L because I cared, he hated Near because I hated Near, but I never knew what he really cared about and I very rarely saw him emotional.

In one of our last years at Wammy’s, final exams were imminent and I’d asked Matt, ‘Are you not gonna do some work?’ And he’d looked at me as if he was honest to God genuinely puzzled by my question.

‘Um, no? New Call of Duty is out and I’ve got a bag of blow, so that’s my evening sorted.’

The kid’s attitude blew my fucking mind.

Sometimes when things were really getting to me and I was clenching my jaw hard to try and stop any tears, but it’d be useless because they’d be lit up and exposed by the lamp on my desk and fall down anyway. Matt would raise his head from a game and walk over to me and place a firm hand on my back, his arm half around me. I’d turn my head, embarrassed, angry at myself for getting emotional again, but wanting Matt to stay beside me. When we were younger, he would pass me an old Nintendo and force me to play Mario Bro’s or Mario Kart to cheer me up and I think he’d let me win and I valued it endlessly. As we got older, I’d allow myself to feel his comfort for a moment and then shake it off.

‘Get off me.’ I’d snap, jumping to my feet.

Matt would just roll his eyes, I never knew why he always took my shit.

We used to burst into each other’s rooms unannounced all the time. One day, when we were about 14 or 15, two of the girls, Celeste and Phoenix, got into a full on fight in the yard. Something about Celeste copying answers, I don’t fucking care, neither of them were that smart anyway and I don’t think they cared about L, but it was hilarious. Comedy gold. And Matt was missing the whole thing. Brazenly I swung the door to his bedroom open.

'Yo Matt, Celeste and Ph-

‘Shit-’ the duvet on his bed swung up as two people jumped suddenly. I stopped abruptly. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I made eye contact with Matt who wasn’t wearing a shirt and was pushing himself away from another boy. He turned to me and looked at me like he was caught in headlights. I glanced over at the boy, I didn’t recognise him. He wasn’t from Wammy’s, I’m not sure how Matt snuck him in. I pivoted as quickly as I could.

‘Sorry,’ I mumbled turning my head downcast to the floor awkwardly. I made a quick exit, not entirely sure what I’d seen.

Matt chased after me, stumbling out of the door.

‘Mel! Mel!’  
‘Wait up!’

I stopped and turned to him, he pulled a t-shirt roughly over his head and then looked at me with desperation.

‘Don’t tell anyone.’ He repeated himself, ‘don’t tell anyone. Please don’t tell anyone.’ He was shaking his head vigorously.  
Caught by the vulnerability in his eyes that I so seldom saw and still surprised, I managed to force out some words.

‘I won’t.’ I mumbled. Then again more confidently, I assured him, ‘course I won’t, no, don’t worry.’ Still blindsided.

Matt looked around swinging his arms slightly. ‘Good. Good.’ He nodded to himself.

There was a pause.

‘Look, I’m not,’ he screwed his face up, pulling away slightly.

‘I’m not – I’m not, y’know. Gay.’

‘Okay. Okay yeah.’ I replied. Not sure what to say, not sure whether to challenge his lie. I guess neither of us could accept ourselves.  
I’d felt a pang in my heart that night that had confused me.

We never spoke of it again, not properly. I’d felt on edge the following few days, but by the weekend he was sat on my bed bonging weed and giggling at cartoons. His stupid laugh kept making me laugh and eventually I gave up trying to read police reports and joined him, carefree on the bed.

Fast-forward a couple years and we’re roommates in our own apartment. It’s a pretty shitty apartment, mostly because Matt’s lazy as fuck and does very little to fund the place or to keep it clean. Paperwork from the Kira case and L’s death make up most of the carpet. What little furniture we do have is mostly covered in electronic devices and we have three old TV screens with CCTV footage on them which I had Matt set up to spy on Misa. There are small bowls all over the room where I, in an exercise in futility, have desperately tried to encourage Matt to use ashtrays instead of him just dumping cigarette ends all over my work.

‘She’s hot.’ Matt said staring at Misa on one of the grainy TV screens. ‘Woah, fuck. She is so hot.’

‘You don’t have to protest that hard, it’s only me here, Matt.’ I quipped. Matt had gotten with one of the girls at Wammy’s and did a few things here and there to protest that he was straight before. I’d just pull a face at him and he’d just tell me to fuck right off.

Matt ignored me, pulled out a small bag of white powder, dipped a key into the bag and then stuffed the key up his nose. Sniffling here and there he continued to stare vacantly at the screens.

‘Yo, look here,’ he called me over. I was biting into a chocolate bar, I moved over to him and leaned over his shoulder, still eating.

‘Jesus!’ He pulled away from me.  
‘Do you have to chew right in my ear? God, you’re so fucking annoying.’

I tried not to laugh.

‘What!? I’m not even chewing loud?’ I defended.

‘Look, this is you.’ Matt snatched the bar from my hand, bit a huge chunk out of the corner and chomped in my face open-mouthed, making weird breathing noises and clamping his jaws together. I burst out laughing.

‘Fuck you, I don’t eat like that.’

He shook his head and rolled his eyes at me, trying to look annoyed but the corners of his mouth were upturned.

‘You ate half my fucking chocolate bar by the way. You have to go get me another one now.’

Matt scoffed. ‘Yeah, sure, and you go buy me some more coke so I can stay up all night spying on people for you.’

I laughed again. Fuck I hope I don’t get this kid killed.

When he’d first seen me in wet-look leather he’d raised an eyebrow and grinned.

‘Is this a fetish thing?’

I posed in the mirror, twisting my torso to catch different angles. I looked good.

‘Fuck you. I just know what I’m about.’ I could see in the reflection that he looked at me curiously. I smiled to myself.

When he’d seen the leather melted onto my skin, patches of it melded in with my red flesh, still burning, I saw that flicker of vulnerability again.

‘What the fuck are you playing at!?’ He yelled as he drove me home.

‘Does it really matter this much!? Jesus fucking Christ.’

He stopped himself, lit another cigarette, taking long drags and keeping it pressed between his fingers as he drove onehanded on dully lit roads in his probably stolen Camaro. He rolled down the window and flicked the end of the cigarette out of it. He broke the silence solemnly.

‘I just don’t want you to die, man.' He spoke softly, like he was admitting it more to himself than me. 'It’s so fucking pointless. You’re more important than all this Kira bullshit.’  
Surprised, I turned toward him. He didn’t meet my gaze.

Back at the flat he helped me clean my burns, following my instructions, stopping when I hissed in pain. That night I stayed up until sunrise. Matt fell asleep some time around 3am, Xbox still on, its fan whirring as music from the home screen played quietly. I looked at him sleeping and felt a weird compulsion just to touch him. I was drawn over to him, I reached out an arm tentatively and ran my fingers through his hair. Then, feeling braver I leaned over him, casting a shadow and kissed him gently on the cheek. The same thought I’d had previously returned to me, though this time with much more gravity.

Fuck. I hope I don’t get this kid killed.


End file.
